Enlightenment Through Understanding

Tyler Cowen: What is neo-reaction?

The article stats are impressive : 525 comments, 287 Facebook shares, 2337 Tweets, and 162 Reddit ‘posts’, indicating a considerable amount of interest in this subject matter and further evidence NRx and the ‘alt right is going ‘mainstream’.

1. “Culturism” is in general correct, namely that some cultures are better than others. You want to make sure you are ruled by one of the better cultures. In any case, one is operating with a matrix of rule.

That’s pretty much straitforward. As measured by intellectual, creative, and economic output, as well as general well-being, some cultures are superior to others. By that measure, the cannibals of Papua New Guinea are an example of inferior culture compared to, say, the culture of Scandinavia or Great Britain. The Hutu and Tutsi, who are constantly killing each other, could be another example of an inferior culture. Not to single out technologically primitive cultures, SJW ‘culture’ may also be also inferior.

2. The historical ruling cultures for America and Western Europe — two very successful regions — have largely consisted of white men and have reflected the perspectives of white men. This rule and influence continues to work, however, because it is not based on either whiteness or maleness per se. There is a nominal openness to the current version of the system, which fosters competitive balance, yet at the end of the day it is still mostly about the perspectives of white men and one hopes this will continue. By the way, groups which “become white” in their outlooks can be allowed into the ruling circle.

This is related to #1…it just so happens that whites tend to produce more intellectual and economic output than other races, although East Asians are a close second. Racist? No, blame IQ, in which European and East Asian countries score the highest. That’s just biological reality. According to Wikipedia’s list of programmers by nationality, there is no mention of South America or Africa (except for one Nigerian, Kingsley Uyi Idehen). The overwhelming majority of programmers are of European or Russian descent. Same for mathematicians, chess champions, architects, inventors, and physicists.

3. Today there is a growing coalition against the power and influence of (some) white men, designed in part to lower their status and also to redistribute their wealth. This movement may not be directed against whiteness or maleness per se (in fact some of it can be interpreted as an internal coup d’etat within the world of white men), but still it is based on a kind of puking on what made the West successful. And part and parcel of this process is an ongoing increase in immigration to further build up and cement in the new coalition. Furthermore a cult of political correctness makes it very difficult to defend the nature of the old coalition without fear of being called racist; in today’s world the actual underlying principles of that coalition cannot be articulated too explicitly. Most of all, if this war against the previous ruling coalition is not stopped, it will do us in.

Many men in America are struggling to stay above water, weighed down by debt, bad job prospects, and a general economy, society, and culture that seems ‘anti-male’. ‘Outrage porn’, including sites like Gawker and Getting Racists Fired, predominantly hurts white people, who are the most frequent targets of the left (black lives matter and violent ‘rapefugees’ and anti-Trump protesters whose race shall not be mentioned by the media, doesn’t count as racism according to the left), and even white women are not safe from the digital lynch mob (as in the case of Justine Sacco).

4. It is necessary to deconstruct and break down the current dialogue on these issues, and to defeat the cult of political correctness, so that a) traditional rule can be restored, and/or b) a new and more successful form of that rule can be introduced and extended. Along the way, we must realize that calls for egalitarianism, or for that matter democracy, are typically a power play of one potential ruling coalition against another.

Egalitarianism is unworkable any free market and free society. Some will have more than others, and wealth inequality is an unavoidable byproduct of economic growth and technological progress. By virtue of biology, some are born ‘better’ than others, and this is manifested by socioeconomic outcomes. Maybe it sucks that some have more than others, but that just the way it is. One idea to help those falling behind is a basic income, although I’m skeptical it will work. Tighter work visa restrictions is another popular idea.

5. Neo-reaction is not in love with Christianity in the abstract, and in fact it fears its radical, redistributive, and egalitarian elements. Neo-reaction is often Darwinian at heart. Nonetheless Christianity-as-we-find-it-in-the-world often has been an important part of traditional ruling coalitions, and thus the thinkers of neo-reaction are often suspicious of the move toward a more secular America, which they view as a kind of phony tolerance.

As I discuss in NRx and Christianity, HBD and the rejection of egalitarianism may not be compatible with Christianity, which tends to preach an inclusive, economically liberal message. However, as I alluded to yesterday in my essay on Protestantism, the concept of predestination seems relevant in our economy, because by virtue of low IQs and or high time preference, not everyone can be ‘saved’ and many fail. ‘Personal responsibility’ is another characteristic of Protestantism, and many of those on the ‘left’ want to blame the ‘collective’ (society, governments, institutional racism, etc.) for their failures instead of blaming the ‘self’ (having a low IQ, majoring in a worthless subject, and or having a poor work ethic).